Secrets of the Oracle
Subtitle: A History of Wisdom from Zeno to Yeats
Publisher: University of Toronto Press; University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Published: 2009
Language: eng
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9781442640344
Subjects: Wisdom literature
Description: "What is wisdom? Where does it come from? Where can we find it? And what does it mean in our lives? In Secrets of the Oracle, W. David Shaw explores these questions by turning to the works of wisdom writers, whose words retain their meaning and transformative power even centuries after they were written." "Wisdom literature exists in two shaping forms - the aphorism, geared towards the past, and the oracle, a revolutionary impulse looking to the future. Secrets of the Oracle discusses both types of wisdom, finding them in the works of poets and philosophers from Tennyson and Zeno to Yeats and George Berkeley, from Browning and Schleiermacher to T.S. Eliot and F.H. Bradley. The book also discusses the contribution to wisdom of Jesus and the author of Ecclesiastes, of Abraham Lincoln and Norman Maclean. Part celebration of wisdom found and part lament for wisdom lost, Secrets of the Oracle is convincing in its assertion that wisdom articulates what is and offers creative visions of the future."--Jacket.